Fun and Fairly Smart

Rating: 7/10 (16 May 2006)

The Island is hardly one of the best films ever made, it is hardly one of the best of the year. It is a hugely flawed mess, basically. But it also has moments of true thoughtfulness, and is very, very entertaining, if a little long. The performances are just horrible, particularly Scarlett Johansson who has shown such talent in such films as Lost in Translation, Girl With a Pearl Earring, and Match Point. Ewan Mecgreger, Sean Bean, Michael Clark Duncan, and Djimon Hounso are all just as horrible. Steve Buscemi gives the only decent performance, it was a horrible moment for the film when he died. The plot is fairly complex and good for the first half of the film, and then it goes all blow em up on us and the only real dialogue is "Run" or other things that mean about the same thing. Both parts of the film are good, just uneven. All in all a decent thriller/action film, very entertaining with little substance, and including some of the best fight sequences ever put on film.